内容摘要：But ministers might be facing another headache over pay and the possibility of a fresh threat of strikes from some unions.

But ministers might be facing another headache over pay and the possibility of a fresh threat of strikes from some unions.

Charles Roberts-McIntosh, chairman of the Arbuthnott Community Development Group, said he is determined that the building and Grassic Gibbon's cultural legacy are preserved."We will look to raise money or apply for funds," Mr Roberts-McIntosh said.

"People are still interested in this history and rural life - and tourists love Scottish culture."The value culturally is incalculable. Sunset Song endures because it is a wonderful piece of literature."Sunset Song was written in 1932 by Grassic Gibbon, the pen name of James Leslie Mitchell.

It was the first book in the trilogy - A Scots Quair - telling the story of Chris Guthrie, a young woman who lives and works on her family farm in the Mearns, the farming areas south of Aberdeen.The novel is set on the fictional estate of Kinraddie which Grassic Gibbon based on Arbuthnott, where he lived as a child and where his ashes were buried after his death at the age of 33 in 1935.

The story told by the trilogy begins just before World War One and follows Chris from the countryside of her childhood to a big city, touching on class, war, religion and female emancipation.

In 1971, a six-episode television adaptation of the novel was the first colour drama made by BBC Scotland and was greeted with huge acclaim."I doubt that he would open his heart to me. And so I thought, well, I could open it by myself. I'd probably do it better than a real conversation would."

The fictional conversation was brought to life by BBC film-maker Alan Yentob in an artificial intelligence animation created for a documentary last year.The results were "very startling", Sir Salman said on Monday. "I have to say it certainly made a point."

The author was speaking on Radio 4 to pay tribute to Yentob, the BBC's former creative director, who died on Saturday."Apart from everything that everybody's been saying about him - that he was an unbelievable champion of the arts and so on - he also had a real gift for friendship," he said. "He was a very strong ally in bad times."